Bang Bang My Baby Shot Me Down
by McFan of Dougie
Summary: "Their faces were close, dangerously so, and Zuko didn't care. All he wanted was to take her in his arms and bring her home. Where she belonged." Zuko/OC. Lightly based of the Nancy Sinatra song. R&R is appreciated but not necessary.


Hello! This is my first Avatar: TLA fic, so don't judge me too much. This is based on a dream that I had the other night, so yeah. It's based after Zuko becomes Fire Lord. (: Enjoy! R&R Is always nice!

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The trees were eerily quiet as Fire Lord Zuko walked through the forest outside of the Fire Nation border. Sometimes, he just needed a break. All the law making and tending to all of the four nations was tiring. He needed time to clear his head. So he went to the safety and comfort of the trees far away from the palace. But this time was different. Normally, he would need to get away from the 'Fire Lord' duties that kept him chained down. This time, it was Mai.

'_I don't fucking understand it', _he thought to himself. '_She has to be right all the time! It gets so old. I could honestly care less if the salad fork goes to the left or the right of the desert fork. But no! She has to be right! She has to make sure that I understand that it goes to left and that if it went to the right that it would throw off the whole table setting. It's stupid arguments like that that make me want to scream!_'

Breaking Zuko out of his thoughts was a rustling sound not too far away from him. He quickly got into a fighting stance and looked around consciously.

"Who's there?" he demanded and he quickly got his reply. A small dagger tore threw each of his sleeves and pinned him on the hard earth floor. Shortly after, many other daggers were pinned onto various parts of his clothing, holding him on ground.

"What is this?" he called out as a figure jumped from a branch in one of the large trees to a lower branch. "I am Fire Lord Zuko! Answer right now or pay the consequences!" Zuko wasn't scared or even frightened, just pissed off. And you don't want to mess with a fire bender (let alone the fire LORD) when he is angry.

"What would the consequences be?" a voice behind him answered calmly. Zuko, surprised that the voice was female, tried to turn his head to look at his attacker. And he failed. He sighed angrily and clenched his fists, fire protruding slightly out of his knuckles. Zuko's attacker walked slowly towards him and he waited blindly to see who it was.

The young woman looked to be about twenty-ish, right around his age. She had long black hair down to her waist with some sort of head band on. Her outfit (or lack there of) was dirty; brown was covering most parts of the faded red fabric. It was a short dress, tears in various places, and in the outfit, the woman looked almost savage. If it hadn't been for her alluring bright green eyes, he would have mistaken her for a patient of the local Fire Nation mental facility.

The woman kicked Zuko lightly on his left hand, the fire going out almost instantly. She smirked. He gulped. She was… stunning to say the least. Slowly, she lifted her right leg and put it on the right side of Zuko, and sat down slowly. Straddling him. His eyes widened as he clenched his fists even harder, trying to restrain himself from "growing" in the wrong places. '_She has some of the best legs I think I've ever seen_,' Zuko thought as he gazed at the toned and tan limbs at either sides of his body. His gaze traveled up to the girl's face. '_I feel as though I've seen her before_…'

His thoughts became distracted, though, as her hand reached out stroked the left side of his face. Her hand moved from cupping his face and tracing her finger along the underside of his jaw and moved upward. To his scar. He winced when she lightly touched the scarred flesh, then he looked into her emerald eyes. Something was there, flashing through her eyes. '_Love_?' he thought as she continued to study his face.

"Who _are _you?" he questioned in a shaky voice, as her hand was now traveling along the side of his neck to a small dagger she had thrown at his shoulder. She chuckled and bent her face down to his. Her face was close enough that Zuko could feel her hot breath puffing onto his mouth. He had to clench his hands together again as his pants were feeling remarkably tight.

"Do you really not recognize me… Kozu?" she asked, smirking. Zuko's eyes went wide at the sound of his once familiar nickname.

"Kozu… I haven't heard that in…"

"It's been eight years, three months, and twenty-two days,' the woman said, slowly pulling out daggers from Zuko's clothing as her hand traveled along the length of his left side. He knew who she was now.

"I thought that… you and your mother… had… They attacked you! You fell from the wall!" Zuko exclaimed, his left side now completely free, but he didn't notice. He was too busy studying the face he hadn't seen in a long time. The girl chuckled sadly, her hand moving to the right side of his body.

"Yeah, we did. But no one came to look for us afterward. Not even you," she said quietly, her eyes locking onto his. He sighed, closed his eyes, and moved his free left hand onto hers.

"Tailera…" he said, gazing into the eyes he knew all too well. Tailera was Zuko's childhood best friend; they were inseparable. Tailera and Zuko played all the time because her father was and is still the chief of the army that protected the royal family. They were what you could call 'childhood sweethearts'. Their mothers swore that they would end up together someday, get married, and have many children. Of course, they would blush and whisper something about cooties, but the older the two got, the more they understood that their mothers were right. It was destined to be.

She sighed, and put a fake smile onto her face. "You know, when I saw you come into this forest a few weeks ago I wanted so badly to jump from my tree house and tackle you so we could play like we used to," she forcefully pulled out the last dagger, making Zuko completely free. But he didn't budge. A: because she was still on top of him and B: because he loved the fact that she was still on top of him.

"Wait, you _live _here?" he asked, his good eye going slightly wide. She blinked a few times before answering.

"Well, when you get attacked by your own nation, it's kind of difficult to go back," she answered.

"I'm sorry Tailera, I'm really confused," he said, shaking his head to get the hair out of his. He was unsuccessful. She smiled sadly, and gently moved her hand to guide the piece out of his eye; he leaned into her hand, feeling every callous from her soft skin.

"When my father brought his army to attack be and my mother that night, we were so confused. Turns out, my mother had been cheating on him with an Earth bender from her past. So he tried to kill for being a "whore" and me because I was the daughter of a whore. I was only thirteen, but I was skilled. Mother and I tried to fight him off, her with her Fire and me with my swords. They cornered us when we were on top of the garden wall and Father…" she took a long, slow breath, "Father decided to be the one to kill us. He shot a wall of fire towards us, knocking us off the wall into the raging sea below. Everyone thought us to be dead, but we weren't. I had thrust one of my swords into the cliffs and caught hung on it, catching my mother as she fell next to me. But I was too young," she paused to take another deep breath. "I tried to hold for as long as I could, but she fell into the sea. I didn't know what to do, where to go, so I came into the forest. I built my little tree house, I would sneak into the Fire Nation market and buy what I could food wise. Sometimes, I would even go back home when I knew Father would be out so I could get supplies. And now, this is home."

"Tailera," Zuko whispered, his hands resting on her calves, "if I had known-"

"You would have what?" she interjected, cutting him off. "You would have brought me to the palace where I would have been killed by my father?" Tailera shoved Zuko's hands off her legs and got off of him, much to his dismay. Luckily for him though, seeing his childhood best friend tell the story of her near death made his pants fit normally again.

"I could have _helped _you. I could have brought you food, helped build you a house, gotten you some um…' he let out a slight cough as he looked up and down her scantily clad form, "some better clothes. We were best friends," he said sadly, standing up in front of her.

Their faces were close, dangerously so, and Zuko didn't care. All he wanted was to take her in his arms and bring her home. Where she belonged. She blushed at their sudden closeness. Tailera reached her hand up to his scar, staring at it with confusion.

"What happened?" she asked quietly. He closed his eyes, then opened again, focusing on her.

"It's a long story," he said, slightly angry. She smiled and cocked her head to the right, taking her hand from his face and grabbed his wrist, pulling him towards the hidden ladder leading to her tree house.

"I have tons of time," and with that one smirk that she threw at him, all his thoughts of Mai went out of his mind, all his duties were forgotten; all he wanted to do was sit with Tailera on her bed and become the friends he remembered them to be. So that's what they did. They sat there, talking about the good ol' days and not so good ol' days. They laid there, sharing untold secrets and mysteries of their lives. But one caught him by surprise.

"You know, that day when… everything changed? And I ran out here?" Tailera asked, sighing greatly, laying flat on her back. Zuko's smile from whatever memory they were just talking about faded as he remembered that horrible day.

"Of course I do," he answered, moving from his back to his side, propping his head up with his hand.

"I know I was only thirteen, but…" her words drifted out and she turned on her side to face Zuko. "I kinda… had a crazy attraction to you." She blinked, then locked eyes with him, neither of them wanting to break the connection. Zuko's heart felt like it was doing back flips as her eyes sparkled just like he remembered.

"Oh," was all he could muster up. '_Come on Zuko! It's just Tailera! Tell her that you missed her and that it was a living hell for you when she left!_' But he just couldn't. "Well, I mean, our mothers always wanted us to be… together but I guess the cooties got in the way?" he answered, uncertain with his own words. She scoffed, shook her head, and smiled sadly.

"You know, Kozu, I thought that once I told you about that, you would fall madly in love with me and sweep me off my feet. But I guess you're the Fire Lord Zuko now and I'm just a girl who's supposed to be dead," Tailera tried to get up off the bed, but failed as Zuko's arm shot up and he grabbed her wrist; no words escaped his lips other than 'no'.

"I… shit Tailera! I just… When I look at you, everything comes back. My mother, my father, that one time that I fell out of the tree onto you after watching you practicing your swords and your hand went right into my 'manhood'." They both laughed, his cheeks flushing at the twinkle of her laugh. Slowly, she sat back down on the bed next to Zuko; by now, his hand was already on top of hers, engulfing the small hand.

"Kozu," she said quietly, her smile reaching her eyes, "I'm not going to sit here and act like we're in love. Because we aren't. I haven't seen you in eight years and you just found out that I'm actually alive. We can't… rush… into…" Zuko's face crept next to hers, making it difficult for her finish talking.

"Who says that this is rushing? I've been waiting almost ten years to do this. I've been patient," he said, his lips finding their way onto hers. '_This, this is right. It feels like… home_,' he thought as he wrapped his arm tightly around her middle, causing her to squeal. He smirked. She pulled away, kissing down his jaw line, her fingers tangled in his hair, rubbing herself up against him. There was no fear in her actions. She knew what she was doing. And, God, it was driving him crazy.

Their hands were everywhere at once. In their hair, on their necks and cheeks, around their backs. And it was all right. They had this pull, like magnets. They wouldn't be complete with out the other.

"You've been trapped in a tree -ohh- for how long, yet you know how to -ungh- do all of -mmm- this?" he asked through his lust filled haze. Zuko felt her smirk against his neck right by his ear.

"You'd be surprised at what learned when I was younger," Tailera said, occupying herself with the buttons on his jacket, trying to get off as much of his clothing as she could.

"With _who_?" he asked, gulping in a deep breath as the cold air reached his now exposed chest. He messed with the hem of her skirt, inching it up slightly as he moved his kisses down to her collarbone.

"Shut up Kozu -mmm- and don't worry about it," Tailera said.

"Whatever you say, I don't want to see your sword skills any time soon," Zuko said, nibbling on her ear lobe.

"But I can't wait to see yours, soon," she said, arching her back, giving Zuko more space to roam on her neck. His eyebrow shot up at her answer, making him want her all the more.

The passion between the two was almost palpable, and yet through the nips, bites, kisses, and licks they still managed to put out important information. One, she would return home with him, and she would get her own security guards so that her father couldn't hurt her. Two, he would break up with Mai in a mature fashion. And three, this thing they had was not love. But with a little luck and time, it sure as hell could be.

**END .**


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